


and then the wolves howl

by i_am_not_a_bird



Category: The Long Dark (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mild Blood and Gore, Sandbox Mode, Wolf Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 02:27:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23937592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_not_a_bird/pseuds/i_am_not_a_bird
Summary: Five times you survived a wolf attack in the snowy northern wildernesses, and the one time luck was not on your side.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	and then the wolves howl

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Alaska by Mogli.
> 
> Takes place in sandbox mode. Also, I've added Fluffy the dam wolf back, because I love her and they never should have deleted her. Going into the dam unawares when you're a beginner starting on Mystery Lake and getting surprised by a hungry wolf is a Long Dark milestone. Long live best girl Fluffy.

**1\. Pleasant Valley**

The books and maps you've come across call this place "Pleasant Valley", but all things considered, it is far from pleasant.

The cold seems to steal every breath from you, and you can never seem to be completely warm even when you have a fire going. Electricity of all kinds is down, which means there are no heaters. So even if you manage to find a shelter inside away from wind, you will still shiver. In fact, shivering seems to be your default state by now, no matter how warm you are: a constant shaking, painful rattling of breath in your chest, following every footstep. It's impossible to stay in one place out in this hell. Even if you manage to find a shelter, you're not experienced enough yet to make it last; the food will always run short eventually.

You stay for a day or two in a tall, drafty barn that smells of hay and too much snow, throwing sticks into the fire barrel and heating up cans of tomato soup you had stumbled across earlier in an abandoned cabin. You spend your days planning where to go next, fruitlessly brainstorming ways to warm up without wasting what little firewood you've found, and trying not to think too hard about how this barn used to belong to the frozen corpse in the outfields.

Eventually, as always, the food runs out, and you gather your belongings and make your way out of the barn and down the snow-covered path. You're halfway to the highway and gazing out into the outfields when you see it.

It's a tall, lean figure, standing out starkly black against the snow. You know what it is the moment you see it, but there's something about it that's a little off. Something about it that doesn't quite match the pictures in the children's books. It takes you a moment of hesitation to realize what it is: the wolf moves with a wobbly, exhausted determination, and it is so skinny that even from a distance you can almost count its ribs.

This wolf is desperate and starving.

You're too far away from the barn now to make it to safety in time that way; even its current state, the wolf is closer and would be able to close the distance faster. There are no other shelters close by that you're aware of. There are no other animals at all: the deer or two you saw in the outfields when you came to the barn seemed to have vanished. You have a dull hunting knife in your pack, a gripping sense of fear washing over you, and you are completely and totally screwed.

You start to walk faster, remembering the abandoned car in the snow by the road. That's your best chance of escape. You can hear snarling pick up behind you, and a shiver runs down your spine. You start to walk faster, and then there's a ragged bark, and suddenly you're breaking into a run, the the sound wolf's desperate whines chasing you.

You do not make it inside the car in time.

You can feel the creature's paws hit you, and you slam against the side of the car. Claws tear at your shoulders. You roll over, and there's sweat and lolling tongues and pain and blood and _pain_ and you can feel your fingers grip the hunting knife and struggle, and you're bashing the wolf's face and your whole body stings and and you're thrusting up at the creature's chest with your leg and and and--

The wolf gives a ragged whimper and scampers away.

You're hardly aware that it's happened at all. You're gulping for air, trying to steady the dizzy, erratic pulse of your heart, and only part of your brain is tracking the fact that you don't need to struggle anymore. All you can really focus on is the sharp edges of pain pricking every wound. You just need a moment before you move on, just a breath.

But this is the Canadian wilderness after the Great Collapse, and wolves can return at any time. So you pick yourself back up, climb into the relative safety of the car's backseat, and hunt through your pack for the antiseptic and bandages.

**2\. Coastal Highway**

The second time isn't quite as bad.

You travel south for a while, picking places clean, trying to avoid the wolves. Your feet lead you across the road and down into an abandoned coal mine, and there you stay for a long while, stitching up your torn clothes by the light of the storm lantern you found near the entrance. The mine's southern exit leads to the coast, and to an area that has more mild weather than the valley and is much more rich in resources... and in hungry wolves.

You don't know how to catch your own food or make your own medicines yet, and so your survival is completely dependent on how fast you can travel to look for more resources. You raid the pantries of long-abandoned houses for canned food, and the medicine cabinets for painkillers and antibiotics. You dig uneaten granola bars out from the pockets of frozen corpses. You strip the carcasses of elk that have died by the highway for the precious little meat there is left. You find bullets for the rifle you don't know how to use in boxes underneath the beds of people who are long dead.

You don't like it, but at this point, it's all that keeps you alive. Stay for a day, take what little resources have been left behind, move on. Sometimes you find notes written by the people left behind. Those are the worst because they remind you that there really was a person there once, a person you are stealing from, a person that was claimed by the long dark just as you might be any day now.

Once, back when you were still exploring Pleasant Valley, you found a hidden cache full of supplies and a note wishing luck to whatever poor survivor comes across it. That one stays with you for a while, keeping you up at night when you wish you'd rather be sleeping.

Dodging wolves is one of the more challenging parts of traveling the coast, as they seem to be everywhere. But there are also plenty of elk, so as long as you're able to keep your distance, they have their food and you have yours. You don't have another close encounter with one until you've already been roaming around there for a few nights. You've just left one of the ice fishing huts when you hear the click of paws against the ice.

You react without thinking. There's not enough time to flee, and just barely enough time to grab the hatchet you found in one of the coastal houses and get ready to fight. You ignore everything else and focus on on thrusting the hatchet forward, on drawing blood. A few moments later, the wolf has whimpered and fled, and you're left standing there dripping blood.

It's much easier to patch yourself up this time, but the problem is the wolf is still trailing after you. Much more cautiously this time, but still with an air of determination, a look of hunger in its eyes. You're sure if you found a place to shelter it would go away, but it's too cold to shelter in an ice fishing hut for long and the nearest other safe places are all the way over by the highway. You don't know how to kill it and you don't want to have to wait it out, so the only other option is to scare it off. Luckily, you have an extra flare in your pack, and you aren't too exhausted to run if you need to.

You press forward, keeping an eye on the wolf behind you. It's getting cockier as you go, veering closer and closer before springing back. You don't want to be too hasty here, because if it's far away when you throw the flare, it might not be scared away. You have to wait until it's trying to rush you.

Within moments, you have your chance. You throw the flare as hard as you can straight at the wolf. As soon as you hear the yelp and the _patter-patter-patter_ of paws scurrying away, you run for it. By the time you reach the coast, the wolf is nowhere to be seen.

It's not a huge success, but being able to scare a wolf off is a lot better than just sitting there and taking whatever it gives you. So that's progress.

**3\. Mystery Lake**

You're not sure at this point why you're so stubborn to survive when every breath is miserable. You know, somewhere absently in the back of your mind, that there will never be anything more to your world than this struggle to survive. Everyone you know is probably dead. Everything you love is gone. There is nothing left on this island for you besides the bitter cold and the howling of wolves.

And yet, standing on the edge of the railroad tracks balanced precariously over the ravine, you can't bring yourself to jump.

You make it to a region the books call Mystery Lake in one piece, thankfully. But you've barely put one foot in front of the other when you hear a familiar low growl. Another wolf.

You sigh and make sure you've got a tight grip on your pack. There's a fence surrounding some big structure-- is that the dam you've heard reference to?-- and that appears to be your best bet of safety. If the fence gate is closed, the wolf can't get in.

You take a few cautious steps, seeing if it'll provoke the wolf. Another low snarl. You step closer, and that's when the wolf breaks into a run towards you. You sprint too, running for the fence gate. You're closing in... just a few more yards and then you'll be safe... But once again, as you always are, you're too late.

There's a few moments of panting and struggling and thrusting your hatchet at it before you manage to drive it away. You scramble for the fence gate, slamming it behind you and clutching your wounds. Your parka is torn and bloody and you can hear your heartbeat throb in your ears. That was worse, so much worse that the second one, you think dizzily. You push on, scrambling to get inside the dam, not willing to take any chances in case the wolf finds a way to get inside the fence. You'll just have to patch up your wounds once you're inside.

With your breath still coming out in gasps, you slam the door behind you, trying to calm your racing heart. _I'm safe now,_ you have to remind yourself. _There are no wolves here. Nothing to hurt me. Just calm down._ You take a slow, deep breath. _Just calm down._

You hunt through your pack and find the bandages and antiseptic. You're pretty badly beaten. You should have had your hatchet ready to fight before the wolf started to run, but it slipped your mind. You have fresh wounds and partially-healed ones that were reopened, and the previous bandages you had are blood-soaked and torn. You do your best to clean yourself up, and then you find the birch bark tea you'd made earlier. According to a book you found along the coastal highway, it's supposed to restore your strength over time, bringing you back to peak condition. Which is good, because you took quite a beating out there. The bandages you just put on moments ago out in the snow are already pretty blood-soaked.

But you can do this. You're safe now. You have enough food to spend a few night sin this dam without going hungry, and you can rest and recover and make a plan for where to go next. You'll be fine.

**4\. Carter Hydro Dam**

When you've tended to your wounds and napped for a few hours, you venture out into the rest of the dam's upper level. There's some good supplies to pick through. You're lucky enough to have found a pry bar earlier, so with a little effort, you can pry open the locked lockers and get to the supplies inside. A pair of ski gloves, some MRE, some rifle ammunition, a whetstone. That'll be useful, because your hatchet and hunting knife are getting more and more worn down.

Finally, you make your way over to a railing. There's a large room down there, and you can make out staircases weaving here and there, up and down along the walls. No clear exit from where you're standing. Maybe over in the shadowy corner? It's hard to make out exactly what's down there in all the darkness. You make your way down, spying some crates and fallen planks here and there. Those could be a good source of firewood--

Something slams into your side like a bullet, and you crash into the wall. You can feel claws and sharp pain and hot breath on your face. Your heart's in your throat as you scramble for something, anything to fight back with, to keep the wolf from clawing off your bloody abadnages and finishing you off for good, but time is running out. Your hands find your pry bar, and you ram it up at the wolf's forehead, buying yourself a moment of time to scramble backwards, grip the first weapon you can grab-- your hunting rifle, it turns out-- and shoot the wolf without a second thought.

The first thing you're aware of is how the noise of the it seems to rip through the air. You're reeling for a moment, unable to hear anything other than the ringing of your ears, unable to feel anything other than stinging pain from your scratches and a sudden, mounting headache.

When the fog in your mind clears, you see the wolf lying dead a few paces away, a bullet in its head. You dropped the gun moments earlier to cover your ears, shocked at how loud the sound was. You're pretty sure you sprained your ankle trying to scramble away, and your bandages are torn again, blood gushing from the wounds. But you are, surprisingly, alive and otherwise intact.

You pick up the gun, root through your pack for the medical supplies, and resolve to never let your guard down again, even when you think you're safe.

**5\. Timberwolf Mountain**

You learn how to use the rifle, for real this time. You find books on firearms and scrounge up enough ammunition to keep you going for weeks. You hunt deer and you do it well, using the remains to make deerskin pants and boots and snares for catching rabbits. You never fire the rifle indoors again, and you keep a careful watch on your supplies, making sure you're not using up all your ammunition too fast.

The next time a wolf comes for you, you're picking cattails on a crystal lake on the side of a mountain slope, and it's dead with two shots to the chest. It makes a nice meal. If you get another carcass or two, you might be able to make a good winter coat out of the pelts, better than your current one. You make a note of that in your journal for later. Even at the end of the world, it can't hurt to have some goals.

**+1. Timberwolf Mountain**

Four weeks. That's how long you scrape by on the mountainside, catching your food with snares and the rifle, melting and boiling the snow outside to make drinking water, gathering sticks and tree limbs for firewood. It's not a bad life. You were actually starting to find it almost peaceful, in a strange kind of way.

Until you took it too far, and tried to kill a moose.

You saw it from a distance and thought to yourself, _That'll make a meal for days._ You thought you were safe from your perch atop a rock. You thought it was big and mean-looking, but deer are pretty easily spooked, and there's no way it'd be brave enough to charge you after the sound of your rifle.

You were wrong.

You hardly even knew what was coming. One moment you were congratulating yourself for making a shot, the next the moose was charging you, and then you were blinking awake in the snow, exhausted and worn out and dizzy, and with a sprained wrist and great pain in your chest. What feels like broken ribs.

There's no time to try and heal any of your wounds because you can see the moose is still watching you. You start to hobble back towards the hut on the other side of the lake, painfully slowly. You have to discard a good amount of your gear because you just can't carry that much with your ribs as they are. Oh well. You'll can come back to fetch your things once you're better.

And you start to think it's going to be okay. You were overconfident-- always a bad thing to be in the wilderness-- but you made it through. You survived. And you'll learn. You just have to make it home.

Your feet have already hit the ice of the crystal lake, _so close_ to safety, when you hear the bark from a few yards in front of you. It's as if the wolf was standing guard on the hut before it caught your scent.

There's no chance of running, not in your current condition. You can't even hold a weapon to fight back. And you're shaking with fear.

The wolf pounces, and your broken ribs sear in pain as you struggle, more so than they hurt even before. You cry out for help, as if there's still some desperate part of you that believes anyone's coming, but it soon changes to screams of pain as the wolf's claws and teeth keep digging into your skin. Your parka is shredded and your head is throbbing in pain and you can't find anything to fight back with. Even you could, you're not sure you could even hold it with your hurt wrist. You just want it to be _over_.

And then, it is.

The pain starts to get fainter and fainter. You feel hardly even attached to the bloody corpse the wolf continues to attack, and your vision is fading. You feel a whisper of peace, and then you fade into the long dark.


End file.
